Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, Dev. Diary [ Feb 16. 2011 ]

This is a first official 'Developers Diary' for Gettysburg:Armored Warfare. My name is Danny Green, President/Lead Programmer @ Radioactive-Software, [ http://www.radioactive-software.com ] well I'm the only employee, so errrr... Those who read my blog on GameDev.net [ http://www.gamedev.n...ctive-software/ ] know that I love to post a lot of screenshots/images, so after 5 years and close to 1mil views of that, I'm not going to change :-p

I'll start out with an overview of the game+tech since this is really the first dev entry I'm making for the game on the Paradox Interactive site [ the game's publisher ]. To re-iterate, Gettysburg: Armored Warfare ( G:AW ) is a RTS/Action hybrid free-to-play online game. The tech supports 64 players per server, 9kmx9km terrains, 1024 controllable units, 2.4mil pieces of foliage, 100k+ fence/walls, a procedural farmland generation system, high resolution art asests [ 10,000+ tris, 4096^2 texture maps, etc], an integrated server browser + in-game lobby for chat/matchmaking, and of course a dedicated server topology! I really want to take advantage of all the things that make PC gaming great. Custom servers, dedicated servers [ sorry console gamers, host-migration doesn't exist in my world...], etc. Also, as usual it's worth mentioning I've programmed this entire thing myself, this represents about 4 months of work on the Gettysburg direction.

In terms of gameplay/setting, I don't think anybody can deny the game is pretty unique, the way I've been describing the backstory in a few sentences is as follows - "Essentially, in the year 2060 this evil Tony Stark esque guy goes back in time to change the outcome of the U.S. Civil War so that the South wins...the government finds out and sends back their own technology creating an arms-race in time. So we have this fusion of 2060s and 1860s technology, with a steampunk twist". There is no campaign in the game, only offline practice with bots.

A lot of people probably see the title of the game and go "wtf? tankz in the civil war, omg, rage. Gen. Lee is turning over in his grave, hhhhhhh, etc". I can understand where they are coming from especially since there hasn't really been multiplayer RTS/Action civil war game similar to this, er...ever? One thing I'm going to do with the game is making it so the server operater can determine what types of units are usable in the world. There will be 3 options: 1) Only realistic civil war units ( 1860s ). 2) Only hybrid futurisitc units ( 2060s ). 3) All types of units available ( 1860s + 2060s ). This means players can turn the game into a pure civil war game if they don't like how the game was meant to be played ( option number 3 ).

Currently the game is still officially 'PRE-ALPHA' status, which means that it's still very much a work-in-progress. I've already implemented Paradox Connect technology into the game, meaning I can login to my servers using my Paradox Forum login information. We're going to start really testing the multiplayer outside of my offices in a few weeks.

What am I working on right now ? Too many things to list, today I got the futuristic hybrid rifle, code named 'X-122' it's a 5.56mm M16A4 type assault rifle. So currently there are 2 infantry weapons in the game, the X-122 and the Springfield 1855 rifle carried by vanilla confederate and union soldiers from the 1860s. Screenshot time!

Yes this is my favorite part of any blog entry, let's get started...remember all of these images are PRE-ALPHA and some of the stuff shown is still a work-in-progress, or was added into the game a few hours ago...

Here is an image of the hybrid confederate armored soldier with the X122 AR... Here is an image of a 'vanilla' Union soldier with his Springfield 1855 rifle.Confederate hybrid armored soldier with X122 rifle.Hybrid Union armored soldier with the X122 rifle.

Screenshot of the RTS view where you can give orders to your squads...

One more screenshot of the X122 rifle ;-p

Here is the last screnshot showing some WIP art assets - hybrid tank, civil war cannon, civil war gatling gun, and a bridge that will be used in the environments.

Well that's all for now, If you have any questions or comments just post them below...